


A Fierce Little Thing

by Thei



Series: Babysitting [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Babysitting, Bribes, Erica is a little badass, Established Relationship, Harringrove, M/M, billy must get on erica's good side, steve's dignity is sacrificed for the greater good, you don't mess with Erica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 22:44:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thei/pseuds/Thei
Summary: “So”, Erica finally said. “You’re Billy.”“Yup”, Billy answered.“I've heard about you”, she continued, and the way she said it made Billy wonder what exactly she'd heard. To be honest, it could be a lot of things. Most of them bad.





	A Fierce Little Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Unapologetically unbeta'd!

“Billy! Billy, you have to help me, man!”

Billy felt a stab of fear at the urgency in Steve's voice.

“What? What's going on?” He was already walking as far as the phone's cord would allow him, reaching for the jacket he'd thrown over a chair earlier.

“Mrs. Sinclair wants me to babysit tonight!”

Billy stopped. “Okay? So what? You've babysat those brats a thousand times.”

“You don't understand!” came Steve's almost frantic voice from the other end. “She wants me to babysit _Erica_! Lucas' little sister!”

Billy grinned, even though Steve couldn't see him. “Well I'm sure you two will have fun together. You can have a girl's night.”

“Fuck you, man. You have to help me! Mrs. Sinclair said I could bring a friend if I wanted to - so you're coming, too!”

“What? No way.”

“Come _on_ , Billy. I know nothing about little girls!”

“And you think I _do_?”

“You have a sister!”

Billy leveled the wall with a deadpan look that he wished he could give Steve. “Max is the _least_ girly one out of all those nerds.”

Steve faltered a bit. Probably because he recognized the truth in that statement.

“Billy, _please_!”

“No way, man. Not a chance. Do you remember what happened the last time we were babysitting?”

“You mean at your house, or ...?”

“No, you moron. That wasn't babysitting, that was _hanging out_. I mean at the Chief's place.”

“Well, yeah. I blew you in your car.”

Billy had to fight down the urge to smile - that had been a nice and unexpected end of the day, for sure. But also not what he was talking about.

“I mean before that. It was literal _hell_ , Steve - they were high on sugar the whole evening!”

“Only because _you_ gave it to them!”

Which was ... true.

“Come on, Billy. You owe me!”

Billy just _knew_ that Steve was giving him puppy eyes, even though he couldn't see it. He could hear it in the other boy's voice - and how that could be so effective over the phone, he had no idea. Damn him, but he had a hard time denying Steve anything, even if he liked to put up a token effort before he caved.

Steve, probably sensing that he was wearing Billy down, hurried to add, “I'll make it worth your while.”

And, well. How was Billy supposed to say no to that?

“Okay, _fine_.”

“Yes! Oh my god, I love you man, thanks!”

Billy blushed – good thing he was home alone, with no one there to see – like he always did when Steve just blurted out things like that. The words that Billy struggled with saying out loud every time (even though he _felt_ them in his _bones_ ) sounded so effortless spilling from Steve's lips.

To distract himself from the sudden warm and tight feeling in his chest, he cleared his throat and asked, “So, what time?”

“I have to be there in half an hour, but I know it's short notice. You can come by at any time.”

“Yeah, no. I mean, I'll be there.”

“Okay”, Steve said, and Billy could hear the smile in his voice. “I'll see you there.”

 

When Billy got out of his car outside the Sinclair home, forty-five minutes later, he was clutching a plastic bag in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. The cigarette, he dropped to the ground and crushed with his shoe, before he took a deep breath and walked up the few steps to knock on the door.

Steve threw the door open with an almost haunted expression on his face, and gave Billy a relieved smile when he saw him standing there. “Oh thank god”, he muttered. Over his shoulder, he said – in a voice _way_ too chipper to be sincere – "Hey Erica, this is my friend, Billy, that I told you about."

He reached out and dragged Billy over the threshold without so much as a “hello”. Billy stumbled inside and found himself in a light and spacious hallway, face to face with a serious-looking girl who was watching the two of them with dark eyes.

“Billy, this is Erica”, Steve said from behind Billy, with a hand on his shoulder as if to keep him from running.

Billy looked at Erica. Erica looked right back. None of them spoke for a long time, and Billy could practically _hear_ Steve sweat nervously behind him.

“So”, Erica finally said. “ _You’re_ Billy.”

“Yup”, Billy answered.

“I've _heard_ about you”, she continued, and the way she said it made Billy wonder _what_ exactly she'd heard. To be honest, it could be a lot of things. Most of them bad.

“I've heard about you too”, he said, which wasn't a lie, exactly. Lucas had probably complained about her in Billy's presence at some point, and Steve had mentioned her on the phone less than an hour ago.

They kept staring at each other.

“You attacked my brother last year”, she said and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Billy managed to resist mirroring her; instead he let his arms hang by his side to seem as unthreatening as possible.

“I did.”

She rolled her head at him and said, “Then what makes you think you're welcome here?”

Billy wordlessly held out the plastic bag and waited until she hesitantly reached out to take it. She gave him a suspicious look, then peeked inside the bag. When she looked up again, her eyes were calculating.

“This for me?” she said.

“Yup.”

Her face split in a wide grin, looking nothing like it had only a second ago. “Then welcome to my house, Billy! Nice to meet you.”

His lips twitched. “Nice to meet you too, Erica.”

She turned and skipped into what looked like it could be a kitchen, but before she disappeared around the corner, she turned around and pointed at Billy.

“Don't touch my brother again, though”, she said seriously.

“I won't”, Billy promised.

Then he and Steve were alone in the hallway. Billy let out a sigh of relief, which was thankfully drowned out by Steve's groaning.

“Oh my god, what even _was_ that? I thought you were gonna get in a fight or something for a second!”

Billy scoffed. “You're an idiot. What do you take me for, a monster? I'm not gonna fight a little girl.”

“That's because you'd probably lose”, Steve muttered and put his head on Billy's shoulder from behind him.

Billy shrugged. “Probably”, he admitted. “She's a fierce little thing, that one.”

“No shit”, Steve agreed. “She's scary.”

“Mm.”

“Hey, what was in the bag?”

Billy turned around so he could see Steve's face, and grinned. “A bunch of girly stuff – makeup and hair things and shit like that. Figured that'd do the trick.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Swiped it from Maxine's stash.”

“Won't she miss it?”

Billy laughed. “Are you kidding me? She'll probably thank me! Every birthday, every Christmas, Susan buys her a bunch of that stuff, and Max never wants any of it. She hides it under her bed, so Susan won't find it and be reminded that it exists and make her use it.”

“That was some quick thinking”, Steve said and wrapped his arms around Billy, pulling him closer. “I'm impressed.”

Billy nuzzled his neck, still smiling. ”Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. I'm so glad you came. Having you here will make tonight so much easier.”

At that exact moment, there was a loud voice coming from the kitchen. “Hey assholes! Am I gonna have to babysit _myself_ here, or what?”

They broke apart, and Billy chuckled at the look on Steve's face. “Maybe not _easier_ , per se ...”

They walked into the kitchen to see that Erica had placed all the content of the bag on the kitchen table and was now tapping her foot impatiently. When they entered, she eyed them with a considering look on her face – or more accurately; she eyed their hair. Billy was the first to realize her intentions.

“Oh _hell_ no”, he said, shaking his head. “Steve volunteers!”

Steve looked confused. “Volunteers for what?”

But Erica was already grinning and pulling out a chair for Steve to sit in.

 

When Mrs. Sinclair came home later that evening, she had to hide her smile behind her hand at the sight that met her. Steve Harrington was sitting in a chair by the kitchen counter, his face an unflattering rainbow of colors due to the eyeshadow, rouge and lipstick that had been applied to it. Erica was seated in a chair next to him, not even looking up to greet her mother - fully concentrated on painting the nails on Steve's left hand (his right had already received that treatment, judging by the colors of his nails and the way he splayed his fingers over his knee, seemingly afraid to move). Behind Steve, Billy Hargrove was seated on the kitchen counter, and was currently busy putting various braids and hair clips in Steve's hair.

“Oh my”, Mrs. Sinclair said.

Steve blushed a bright red – that did _not_ go well with the purple eyeshadow that he was currently wearing – and Billy Hargrove looked up, grinning, and greeted her politely. “Hello Mrs. Sinclair.”

“It ... looks like you guys had fun?”

Steve still didn't seem to have gotten over his mortification enough to form words, and Erica just nodded.

“Oh yes”, Billy therefore said. “ _So_ much fun. Say, Mrs. Sinclair ... you don't happen to have a camera laying around, do you?”

Mrs. Sinclair couldn't help the snort that escaped her at the betrayed look Steve threw over his shoulder at the blonde boy.

“You know what?” she said, “I think I just might.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have another project that I REALLY need to finish, so what do I do? Write this instead.  
> Because I needed EASY and FUN and UNCOMPLICATED and also I have no character.


End file.
